You don’t need the PLAN_TABLE table

This post is about the following error you may get when looking at an execution plan after setting the current_schema:

Error: cannot fetch last explain plan from PLAN_TABLE

It is related with old versions and relics from even older versions.

In the old times, PLAN_TABLE was a permanent shared regular table created by utlxplan.sql. Since Oracle 8i which introduced Global Temporary Tables, the PLAN_TABLE public synonym refers to SYS.PLAN_TABLE$ which is a GTT, not shared and emptied at the end of your session.

When I want to tune a query, I usually connect with my DBA user and change my session schema to the application one, so that I can explain or run the user query without having to prefix all tables. But when there is a PLAN_TABLE in the current schema, DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY may fail: